The present invention relates generally to structural framing members, and more particularly to a bracket for reinforcing a stud or similar building element having a hole or notch provided therein, through which a pipe or similar fixture has been inserted.
In present light building construction, it is very common for architects to specify the use of wooden studs as the vertical members of the load-bearing walls. Specifically, wooden 2.times.4 and 2.times.6 studs are often specified because they combine many desirable characteristics. They are available in standard sizes, they are easy to trim and otherwise work with, and they are relatively inexpensive. Most importantly of all to the present invention, they can be notched or have holes of selected dimensions formed in them without losing their design capacities. For example, the Uniform Building Code allows builders to remove 25% of the width of a stud in an exterior wall or a bearing partition by means of a notch or hole with no reduction in the load bearing capacity of the stud parallel to the grain of the wood. See Volume 2 of the Uniform Building Code, Section 2320.11.9 (1997 edition). The Uniform Building Code is published by the International Conference of Building Officials, located at 5360 Workman Mill Road, Whittier, Calif. 90601-2298, telephone: (800) 284-4406. This means that many electrical and plumbing conduits can be run within the load bearing walls without interfering with the structural characteristics of the wall. This is particularly important to architects and engineers, because this means they can ignore many electrical wiring and plumbing issues when designing the walls of the structure.
However, sometimes it is desirable or becomes necessary to remove more than the code-specified amount of material from a stud in a bearing wall. When this is the case, usually, it will be only one or two studs in a wall where an oversized notch or hole needs to be made. Of course, the designer can specify that larger studs be used in the wall so that the total percentage of material removed from the particular studs is within the code-specified limit, but this is wasteful, since only one or two studs really need to be larger. Furthermore, it is often only discovered that too much material needs to be removed from a stud after the wall has been almost completely erected. For example, sheathing will have been applied to one side of the wall, or fixtures attached, or upper levels of the structure built on top of the wall. In fact, many times it is an inspector who discovers that too much material has been removed from a stud for a plumbing conduit that has already been installed in a wall that is otherwise complete except for the finishing details. When this happens the cost of redesigning and rebuilding the wall becomes very high.
As an example of an oversized notch, plumbing return pipes are often nominally two inches in diameter, requiring a notch that is approximately 2.5" deep to be made in the stud to accommodate the pipe. A notch that is 2.5" deep in a 2.times.4 stud removes 71% of the width of the stud, exceeding the code's recommendation. A 2.times.4 stud has an actual width of 3.5". Such a notch even exceeds the code's recommendation for non-bearing partition walls where the notch can be 40% of the width of the stud.
The present invention is designed as a simple means to mend studs where too large a notch or hole has been made. The present invention seeks to mend the studs such that they can meet design compression load requirements. A Douglas Fir 2.times.4 stud has a cross-section that is 1.5" deep and 3.5" wide, and a compression loading capacity parallel to the grain of the wood that is 850 pounds per square inch. While such a stud can be considered to have a total bearing capacity of 4,462 pounds parallel to its grain, other structural limitations typically require that the design load for a 2.times.4 stud be much less. The inventor has informally surveyed designers and found that they rarely design compression loads on individual studs to be greater than 800 pounds. Through testing, the inventor has found that a shortened stud that has been sawn all the way through and then reinforced according to the present invention with a bracket formed according to the preferred embodiment and reinforced laterally has a design compression capacity of at least 1200 pounds.